Dr. Delia J. Milliron

Dr. Milliron is currently an Associate Professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. After receiving her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, Milliron spent approximately four years as a researcher for IBM. Upon establishing her own lab at UT Austin, her industrial experience helped attract students and post-doctorates from diverse backgrounds including physics, engineering and synthetic chemistry. Her research led to the discovery of a dynamic infrared coating for windows, that can be manipulated through electrical conduction. The new coating has significant potential applications and Dr. Milliron has formed a company, dubbed Heliotrope, to commercialize this window coating and future iterations.

“Delia is responsible for discovering a new family of nanocrystals,” said Dervan. “This, coupled with her ability to transfer fundamental discovery in an academic setting, to real-world applications, all within the span of a few years, has made her a stand-out in the chemical engineering world.”

Milliron is currently an associate editor at one of the American Chemical Society’s most prestigious journals, Nano Letters. Her work has been published in Nano Letters and in various other prominent publications including Nature, Nature Materials, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other awards she has received include a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Caltech Resnick Institute Resonate Award, two R&D 100 Awards including one for Universal Smart Windows and a Department of Energy Early Career Award.

“We began studying plasmonic metal oxide nanocrystals because of their potential to resolve the puzzle of how to separately control light and heat entering buildings as the sun shines through our windows,” said Milliron. “As we have learned more, the rich chemistry and physics of these materials suggests additional possible applications in areas as diverse as catalysis and medical imaging.”